


Death Inspires Me Like A Dog Inspires a Rabbit

by loveiscosmicsin



Category: FF15, FFXV - Fandom, Final Fantasy 15, Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Drabble, Gen, Implied Self-Harm, M/M, Noctis and Prompto friendship, Traitor!Prompto, could be seen as Promptis or implied Promptis, two character deaths and an inevitable death which would lead to someone being finally alone
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-28
Updated: 2016-05-28
Packaged: 2018-07-10 15:35:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,197
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6991456
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/loveiscosmicsin/pseuds/loveiscosmicsin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They say death comes to you as a familiar face,<br/>…I just didn’t expect it to be wearing yours.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Death Inspires Me Like A Dog Inspires a Rabbit

**Author's Note:**

> I had it in my phone’s notes since 2014 but the bae letshareapapou and her awesome fanart of Traitor!Prompto inspired me to write it out and expand on it more. I did try to combine several ideas. And of course, her captions and art are much better than this silly title and drabble, bear with me that it’s from Twenty One Pilot’s HeavyDirtySoul. Now as for Prompto on why he would betray the group, I have some ideas but not in this drabble where you would find them, just like how I left Traitor!Ignis’ motivations up in the air. Another time, perhaps. But know that Prompto in this didn’t do this out of jealousy or just to deprive pleasure at Noctis’ suffering.  
> Let me know if I made any typos or grammatical mistakes or if I wasn’t clear or was too wordy somewhere or my tagging was inefficient.

Pervasive glowers bore unto Noctis whenever he tried to divert attention away from himself. Unfriendly words he heard in passing further manifested the aegis he wrapped himself in. The prince never informed anyone of the alienation he endured at school. He only spoke when spoken to and did nothing out of the ordinary. If he could get by with the exercise until graduation then he would succeed.

The blonde was the first one to approach him and threatened that exercise.

“Hey, you’re Noctis, right?” The lanky, freckled teenager who wore clothing several sizes too large planted his lunch tray on the prince’s desk. “Can I sit here?” He drew a chair opposite of Noctis and sat down without letting the prince speak for or against it. “Thanks. It’s too crowded in the cafeteria today.”

Noctis, still chewing through a piece of fried chicken from the homemade lunchbox Ignis prepared for him, looked from the deficient food tray to the outgoing blonde’s face. When their eyes met, the blonde beamed at him, revealing his red and green colored braces. He was a classmate who shared the same periods as him. A well-known class clown and notorious for pulling pranks and flirting with classmates. Being on the receiving end of their rejections did little to damper his mood and he would find another to butter up. The prince never bothered remembering names even for someone as popular as him.

“You…” The chicken cutlet went down the wrong tube. Noctis coughed as he reached for a bottle of water. He chose to eat his lunch in the classroom where he knew he was not to be bothered. It was too noisy and crowded in the cafeteria and courtyard. Had he drawn this classmate’s attention? He thought to himself, eying the troublemaker curiously after he took a swig of water.

“Me?” The young man raised an eyebrow and elastic bands in his mouth extended when his jaw dropped. He jabbed a finger at his own chest. “You don’t know me? But I’m in all your classes!” He rested his arms on the back of the chair, leaning towards the prince. The sunlight pouring in from the window next to them made his unruly locks and sprinkled freckles angelic. “Name’s Prompto Argentum. I’m the goofball who gets sent to the principle’s office at least once a day.”

Prompto. Yes, Noctis remembered now. The prince had saw him earlier that morning. Prompto stood outside straining with the heavy buckets of water he carried in front of him, a punishment administered to him before the class even begun.

“Someone must really love you.”The blonde drew back his arms, wincing as he rotated them. “Your lunchbox looks really good.” A high-pitched whine escaped his lips as he poked at his bland display. “I wish they didn’t run out of hot sauce packets today. I live for spicy food.”

Noctis spooned some rice into his mouth and swallowed it without chewing. He never partook in the institution’s dietary products, but from what he saw on the blonde’s tray it didn’t appear appetizing. He was not a fan of spicy foods, but he had been thankful that his meals at the Caelum Mansion had flavor and presentation to them.

“Hey, do you know what the hell this is?” Prompto, still engaged in a conversation mostly with himself, lifted a crusted mass attached to his fork. “Food horror and it’s not even Halloween.”

Noctis squinted. He couldn’t identify any of the items on Prompto’s tray, well, except for the wrapped dinner roll. Not because they weren’t food that he would normally eat but because the item in question had retained solid form and there was a questionable raw consistency to it. He eyeballed the bizarre crispy yellow strings coiled around the food.

“That might be spaghetti.” Noctis frowned as he leaned back in his seat. “The meat sauce is what’s keeping the noodles together.”

“Huh?” Prompto took a tentative nibble at the edge of the burnt substance before nodding to Noctis’ conclusion. Noctis felt some pride swell for his deduction skills. “You’re right. But last time I had spaghetti, it didn’t look like a brick.” Turning his fork over, the said spaghetti-brick fell with a thud on the metal tray. “I could care less what it looked like when I’m starving but it would be nice if the school actually labelled their menu.” He tore pieces off a dinner roll and shoved them into his mouth. “Bread’s still good though.”

Noctis speculated why his classmate would ever want to eat with him. He wasn’t a transfer student and would have been privy to the reasons why nobody would want to be near the prince. This instance must be a one time thing only. The prince decided that he should not think heavily on small gestures lest he set himself up for disappointment.

-

Since that day, Prompto had been continuous presence at school. That one interaction during lunch was not a dare or an experience to mock among peers, much to Noctis’ relief and disappointment. He was used to being ignored and now he jumped at whenever Prompto called out his name before dashing to meet him, causing all eyes to turn on the two. He did not know what to make out of Prompto’s exuberant mannerisms.

“Why do you keep hanging out with me?” Noctis asked as the two of them walked up the stairs to the roof top. The roof top became their spot during the breaks and lunch periods. The prince would sometimes find his classmate here long after school had ended for the day.

When they were together, Noctis felt no pressure or expectations being exerted on him. Prompto mostly did the talking for the both of them and Noctis would listen and occasionally offer an agreement or disagreement to the topic at hand. The blonde never accused the raven haired boy of not listening or lambast him for being too quiet. He would shut his mouth and listen intently whenever the prince spoke, allowing him plenty of time to express what needed to be said.

The blonde had his instant camera out, a vintage model he had showed off every chance that he got, and positioned himself. “Huh? That’s a funny question to ask, don’t you think? We’re friends.” He answered simply as the camera’s shutter went off.

Noctis scowled. He had told the blonde to knock it off with taking pictures of him. But Prompto would always respond that Noctis was his muse; it cannot be helped unless you chopped both of his hands off and knocked him blind. He recently took up photography, a subject that he grew to be passionate about.

Prompto smirked as he shook the film before passing it to Noctis, reminding him to keep shaking it as he waltzed to a secret compartment.

“We are?” Noctis was puzzled, but shook the film just as Prompto advised. The prince saw himself on the flimsy item, a halo about him fabricated by the sunlight and the blindingly blue sky behind him. The aspiring photographer just made it too easy for Noctis to appear at the center of everything and almost untouchable.

Prompto pulled out a ice chest from the compartment. He had always kept it stocked with sweets, ice cream, and beverages. Noctis was amazed how Prompto was able to stow it away from instigators who would love to steal his stash.

Returning with a blue popsicle in his mouth and a drink in one hand, Prompto peeked at the film. “Nice! Another keeper!” He retrieved the film and passed Noctis a can of soda.

“Are you really using that picture for your assignment?” Noctis almost held himself back from asking because Prompto had been snapping pictures of him for the past couple days. He wasn’t looking forward to more photo shoots, planned or otherwise.

Noctis inspected the can, wondering if the blonde had tampered with it just so it could spray him in the face like last time.

“Yup! The teacher thinks I might be a diamond in the rough. Untapped potential, he says.” The blonde rested his arms on the railing, gazing up the deep azure sky. “He said I picked a good model so that’s always a plus.”

Noctis went over to join him. “An unwilling one at that.”

Prompto laughed, smiling even when he returned the icy treat back to his mouth.

Noctis fought the contagious merriment and placed his unopened can to the side. “I don’t think we should be friends anymore.” He said tacitly.

“Yeah?” Prompto raised an eyebrow, confusion etched on his features on how to respond to this. “Give me one reason why we can’t be friends?” He blinked as he mumbled with the popsicle in his mouth.

Noctis turned his back to him, intending to leave. “You wouldn’t get it.”

Prompto took him by the wrist. “Help me understand, Noct.”

The prince took a deep breath. His hand flew to his right arm, it was broken at some point and healed except for the scar he kept hidden under long shirts and jackets. A reminder that he nearly lost his life that day.

Prompto was still waiting for an explanation. 

“I had an accident a couple years ago,” Noctis squeezed the fabric of his sleeve. “And it made me a monster. I... Through these eyes, I constantly see the dead and when I do... They burn through my retinas that I wished I was blind. I should have died.”

The last statement made Prompto jump, dropping his popsicle. “Your eyes... They’re red.”

Sorrow filled the young prince. “That’s why we should end—”

Prompto leaned in close, the sudden advance was much too intimate than the prince was accustomed to. Noctis took in the constellation of freckles across Prompto’s face, a universe that he found himself falling into. His breath, frosty and carrying a hint of blue raspberry, made the prince’s face tingle. He could have blinked or averted his gaze but something in those stunning beryl orbs, planets of their own, made it impossible to.

Prompto took a step back, finally allow Noctis to breathe. “That’s it? I mean, that sucks, bro, but you’ll have to do better than that to get rid of me. I like you because…” A smile tugged at his lips as though he could barely hold back a secret from slipping out. “Just because.”

-

Noctis did not realize that Prompto had overheard him arguing with Gladiolus and Ignis.

Not until he heard the crash and the blonde’s hasty retreat.

The prince wasted no time to go after him. He was responsible as the sentinel and advisor for doing Prompto a disservice for speaking about him when he was not present. What had fell before the blonde made his escape was his camera. Noctis scooped it up in his hands without inspecting it, ignoring the frantic calls for him to return to the room.

He did not have to run far.

Prompto was crumpled on the floor in the hallway. His face was red and his hands were on his chest and stomach. His breath labored as though as he ran a marathon.

Noctis took a knee at his side. Prompto’s left fingers were coated in crimson. Blood.

It led to a wound on the blonde’s right bicep.

The prince took out a handkerchief and wrapped the wound in it. Prompto did not utter a word but his breathing had eased down a bit. It was best to let the episode subside on its own and Noctis excelled at patience.

It was best not to ask him why he harmed himself and how much he heard.

Prompto gingerly touched the handkerchief adorned on his arm. His eyes were listless and did not look to Noctis. “It’s difficult to play the part of the lovable, good guy, you know?”

-

Noctis descended down the stairs with a heavy heart and a tempest of emotions surging through his stomach. It’s been a while since he visited his old friend.

He had been advised not to venture on by himself and it was not because of the circumstances surrounding the estrangement. The true reason was because the prior visit ended prematurely when Noctis lost his composure and found his hand clamped on someone’s throat.

Prompto beamed when he saw Noctis arrive, placing down a magazine he had been flipping through and took a couple steps before halting.

The chrome bars served as a divider between the two men. 

Prompto slid his arms through the bars and casually wrapped his arms around them despite the reprimands the guards enforced. He never been one to be receptive to authority.

“It’s good to see you, Noct. What’s the occasion?” The blonde pressed his forehead against the bars. “You didn’t bring company this time.”

Noctis did not respond despite how he wanted to voice the opposite to that sentiment. But it would a futile effort and needless talk was taxing. He had rehearsed his lines for this moment and anticipated what Prompto would have responded back, but he was speechless.

Despite the dark rings under his beryl eyes and his golden locks almost silvery and limp, Prompto looked like the high-strung and impish companion Noctis knew since high school. But Noctis cannot view him in that same light; no elation came from it. Instead the image of Prompto drenched in blood with an almost bored expression on his face haunted Noctis every night. Every time he shut his eyes, Ignis and Gladiolus’ bodies are sprawled out in grotesque macabre at their murderer’s feet. Prompto reeked of death that Noctis still found himself expelling his insides time and time again.

“How’s the ol’ arm?”

Noctis shifted in his stance, feeling the sensation of fabric unavoidably caress the tender flesh. Since the incident, the sovereign had adopted flowing robes to disguise the disfigurement of a marred limb slashed a little above the right elbow. The pain rushed back to him at once and out of reflex, strained against the arm brace he had equipped to keep it in place.

Prompto was also responsible for that loss. Not that the convict intended to draw blood when his true objective was to claim the monarch’s life. 

They say that death comes to you as a familiar face, but he never expect it coming from Prompto’s. Noctis shivered involuntarily. Seeing Prompto was like looking straight at the face of death.

Prompto was dying.

The knowledge was never exchanged between the two former friends. Perhaps Prompto had not realized it yet, but Noctis’ sight confirmed the fact. This was the reason why Noctis did not execute him after the trial, the retribution would be administered through Prompto’s inevitable agony and death. But death alone would not satisfy the sovereign nor would it bring back Ignis and Gladiolus.

Once Prompto has departed and entered through the Gates of the Dead, Noctis would be truly alone.

The blonde let out an exasperated, annoyed huff. Tapping his foot anxiously, he wailed, “C'moooon, Noct. It doesn’t make a very fun visit if one of us is doing all the talking. Do I have to rattle my cup to get a reaction outta you?” He withdrew a hand to scratch at an inflamed lesion on his cheek. Blistering sores had engulfed those stellar freckles that Noctis had once thought fondly of. “Last visit, you probably said more to me than you did in months though I wouldn’t count screaming before jumping on me as talking.”

The sovereign gathered the resolve that had brought him there in the first place.

“So you were the snake in the story.” Noctis gripped one of the bars, closing in the remaining distance as he glared at an unflinching Prompto. “The one who turned around and bit me.”

A Cheshire grin eased its way across the blonde’s features, stretching from ear to ear.

-

“Skip rocks with me?”

It was Noctis and Prompto’s turn to clear off dinner. They were elbows deep in a bucket full of suds. They would have finished faster had the blonde not been sneakingly squirting water at the raven haired man and blowing bubbles through his cupped hands. When Noctis handed the last soapy dish for Prompto to rinse and dry off, the gunslinger proposed the activity.

Noctis dried his hands on a towel and turned on his heel. “Sure, just let me—”

“Just the two of us.” The blonde gunslinger decided, draping a dripping wet arm around Noctis before adding, “Can’t disturb those two while they’re engaged in a mean game of chess.” He grinned, and the prince never mentioned it to him that his teeth did shine brilliantly after those braces came off.

Noctis glanced over his shoulder. His sentinel and advisor were indeed hunched over a chess board resting on a tree stump. They may not even notice the two being gone for a couple minutes. He nodded.

There was a disquiet about him, pensive even. Noctis never witnessed Prompto behaving like this. Prompto scored the longest leaps, but did not declare any victories from them.

“Wanna hear a story? It’s one that my grandpa used to tell me.”

This was the first that Noctis had heard Prompto mention having any family. When they were in high school, Prompto had took Noctis to where he lived, only to explain that he had been living by himself for a number of years and there was no family to speak of.

“A boy sees a venomous snake in his small village. He keeps his distance from the snake until it leaves. He follows the snake into the forest. He clears the branches out of its path and helps it over obstacles. He even slaves over the fireplace to keep it fed. Many nights pass and still the determined little bastard continues to follow the snake. He even follows it it into the wasteland of a great desert. In the desert, the snake eventually grows hungry. It turns and bites the young man, its poison quickly working its way into his system. Finally curious, the snake looks at the boy as he lays dying and asks, “Why were you foolish enough to follow me all the way out into the desert?” The boy looks back and replies, “Did I follow you? I thought I was leading you away from everyone else…” And then he died. Isn’t that fucked up?”

“Am I supposed to be the snake?”

“Maybe? I don’t know. Gramps was a real wind bag about this stuff. He felt that being in cryptic and waving his fingers like a wizard would ingrain me with morals. Made me sit on it for weeks before I realized that he was senile. But from how I took it, I think to why I’m still here. You asked me to go on the road trip and look where we are now. I’m not smart like Ignis and I’m not tough like Gladio, but I can’t just twiddle my thumbs and do nothing.” He placed his hands on the prince’s shoulders, forcing him to face him. “Just what you to know that I’m with you until the end, Noct.”


End file.
